The first Pentecost took place 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and fulfilled prophecies by both Jesus and John the Baptist, where both said the people would be baptized by the Holy Spirit. Many denominations share similar beliefs, but differ on other issues. For example, the Apostolic Pentecostal movement differs on the belief of the Trinity than other Pentecostals, saying that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three titles for Jesus.
Again, because there are so many different sects of Pentecostals, beliefs tend to differ in some ways. However, most of the churches share the same core beliefs that salvation is through Jesus, healing is possible through Him and He is returning again. Among the core tenants of Pentecostalism are: Most Pentecostals believe in medicine and doctors, but also strongly believe in divine healing.
Most believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit begins when the person begins speaking in tongues. Many also believe in the practice of foot washing. Speaking in tongues is thought to be an outcome of baptism through the Holy Spirit. The church believes in the gift of speaking in tongues, both glossolalia speech in an unknown language and xenoglossy speech in a language known but not to speaker.
A Pew Research Center study found that globally, most countries with Pentecostalism say their church services include speaking in tongues, prophecy and divine healing. The same study found that 62 percent of U. Pentecostals say they have witnessed divine healing. In many Pentecostal churches, women are given the opportunity to serve as preachers, missionaries and some cases as the pastors. Charles Fox Parham whose student Agnes was first to speak in tongues trained women for ministry.
He also commissioned women to establish church plants. How does the largest Pentecostal denomination, the Assemblies of God, explain its beliefs about the Trinity? Keep reading to learn the answers to these questions and others. What are the origins of Pentecostalism? Historians date the origin of the modern-day Pentecostal movement to the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California, which started in Is Pentecostalism a denomination?
Rather, Pentecostalism is a belief system that certain denominations affirm. Two of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world are the Assemblies of God and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. What do orthodox Pentecostals believe? Orthodox Pentecostals affirm the same core tenets of Christianity as other followers of Christ do, such as the Trinity, original sin, the inspiration of Scripture, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues? In relation to secondary theological matters, Pentecostals believe that baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs after conversion most non-Pentecostal Christians believe it occurs at the time of conversion and that speaking in tongues is the evidence for it.
Do Pentecostals believe in miraculous gifts? Do orthodox Pentecostals have fellowship with other Christians? Despite their differences, orthodox Pentecostals have unifying relationships with Christians in all historic denominations like Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans and Episcopalians, and even non-denominational churches.
All parties recognize that what unites them doctrinally is greater than what divides them. Also see the full article What Is a Pentecostal Church?
Are Pentecostals that reject the Trinity Christians? Rejecting the Trinity is heretical in their view. They justify this using scripture. Some Pentecostal churches engage in the dangerous practice of handling poisonous snakes during services; teaching that doing so successfully was a gift of the Spirit. They base this practice on Mark ; "they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all".
Although this practice has been given sensational publicity in the media, it was always extremely rare, restricted to small sects, and largely disapproved of by the larger Pentecostal denominations. Pentecostalism began among poor and disadvantaged people in the USA at the start of the Twentieth century.
Although the movement is a modern one its foundation is usually taken to be the American Azusa Street revival in the first decade of the 20th century , its roots go back to the 18th century Wesleyan Holiness tradition, the 19th century Holiness movement and the late-Victorian Keswick Higher Life movement.
The Wesleyan Holiness movement was a reaction against the formality and ritualism of the traditional Christian churches of the time. It taught that Christians needed to be transformed by a personal experience of the truth of Christ which they could only get through the power of the Holy Spirit. Members of this Methodist tradition experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit which was given that name in by John Fletcher. Baptism in the Spirit was an important feature of all the Holiness churches.
The difference between these earlier traditions and the Pentecostal movement was, on the surface, speaking in tongues as a physical sign of baptism in the Spirit. The theological conflict underlying this was that members of the Holiness tradition believed that the Pentecost story did not need to be interpreted absolutely literally in modern times, while the early Pentecostals were committed to seeing baptism in the Spirit as an absolute re-enactment of the day of Pentecost.
Parham's Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, spoke in tongues actually, the story is that she spoke in "Chinese", and did not speak English again for several days. On January 3, Parham and a dozen other students also spoke in tongues. In Seymour preached that God would "send a new Pentecost" if people prayed for one, and was rewarded when he and his congregation began speaking in tongues.
This event, greatly helped by apocalyptic thoughts prompted by the San Francisco Earthquake which happened soon after, sparked a powerful religious revival driven by the three doctrines of salvation, sanctification and baptism in the Spirit, and in which the gifts of the Spirit were seen on a large scale.
Over 13, people are said to have spoken in tongues in the first year. At first the Pentecostal ideas flourished in individual church groups across North America, and it was not until that the first Pentecostal denomination, the Church of God in Christ, was founded. It became the headquarters of a network of Pentecostal churches which became known as the Apostolic Faith Church. Pentecostal worship is less formal and more emotionally expressive than that of other Christian traditions.
Participants worship with body, heart and soul, as well as with their minds. Much Pentecostal worship is designed to bring about an experience of God's presence, and to this end the atmosphere, worship-leading and music encourage openness to the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The gifts of the spirit are often demonstrated during church services, sometimes quite dramatically. In Pentecostal churches there is a great deal of active congregational involvement: the worshippers may dance and clap. Personal testimonies may be given. Preaching may rely more on stories and less on textual analysis. The congregation is likely to respond actively to the sermon, with applause, or, in some churches, shouts of amen and hallelujah.
The result may well be that participants feel that the service is actually led by the Spirit. Consequently Pentecostals are able to see the church as a community of God's people working to create the context for a direct experience of God. Some Pentecostals also use 'worship' to refer to their everyday life which they dedicate as a gift to God.
Pentecostalism offers attractive spiritual certainties in a world where religious truths are under attack, because a direct experience of God is unarguable to those who receive it: "if it happens to you, you know it's true". Pentecostalism began among the poor and disadvantaged in North America. This tradition of being both of the poor and for the poor has given the movement particular appeal among the poor in South America and Africa, where its growth is partly rooted in continuing anger at widespread poverty and inequality.
Pentecostalism adapts easily to local traditions and incorporates local music and other cultural elements in worship, enabling people to retain elements of their own spirituality when they move to a Pentecostal church.
This adaptability has made it easy for non-Pentecostal churches to include Pentecostal elements. Walter Hollenweger has pointed out that Pentecostalism offers 'oral' people the same chance to take part in the life of faith as it does to 'literary' people.
Pentecostalism is revolutionary because it offers alternatives to 'literary' theology and defrosts the 'frozen thinking' within literary forms of worship and committee-debate. It gives the same chance to all, including the 'oral' people.
Pentecostalism is particularly strong in South America, Africa, and Asia. It has a unique character on each continent - which is one reason why it's so successful. Developing-world Pentecostalism has been particularly successful among the poor like its success in the USA which has also mostly been among the less well off. Pentecostal denominations have been particularly successful in Latin America among largely unchurched and nominal Roman Catholics, particularly those at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy.
In this sense Pentecostalism is a Christianity for the underclasses of the world. Pentecostalism's success in the developing world is partly due to energetic missionary work by Pentecostal churches and partly due to history, politics, flexibility and empowerment. Historically Pentecostalism grew out of African-American churches which retained many stylistic elements that still resonate with the developing world and with the contemporary West too.
These were things such as an emphasis on the interconnection of body, mind and spirit, which it displayed in its highly physical worship, and in healing, speaking in tongues, and the acceptance of dreams and visions as valuable tools of spiritual insight. Politically and socially, Pentecostalism originated in churches filled with people who were poor and oppressed and it has never forgotten those roots.
Its early leaders were working class Christians with a very similar life experience to the people they led. These factors give Pentecostalism great appeal in parts of the world where people continue to suffer from poverty and injustice. Pentecostalism approaches the predicaments of the poor very practically; churches work as 'mutual aid communities' to deal with poverty and sickness, and provide alternative solutions to problems that might otherwise be 'solved' with witchcraft or other superstitious practices.
Pentecostalism, more than any other form of Christianity, is willing to fit in with local cultures and use local music and other cultural elements in worship, and sees the value of teaching the Christian message through religious ways of thinking and talking that are already familiar to local people. Because Pentecostal worship is spontaneous and oral, rather than anchored in a liturgical text, it allows all members of the congregation to play their part without any fear of doing the wrong thing, and enables each one to share their particular experience of God and have it valued by the whole community.
The result is that Pentecostalism can take on a completely local costume:. It may be appropriate to consider Korean Pentecostalism as a culturally indigenous form of Korean Christianity interacting with shamanism, just as African Pentecostalism is in constant interaction with the African spirit world, and as Latin American Pentecostalism encounters folk Catholicism and Brazilian spiritism.
But flexibility is valuable to a church in other ways too: since developing countries are now changing far faster than Europe or America ever did, Pentecostalism's ability to change, and its devolution of power to individual church communities allow it to adapt to the needs and desires of the people better than more rigidly hierarchical churches.
Pentecostal churches have flat power structures, and allow a very great amount of participation by the laity, both in worship and in the organisation of their institutions. This has an obvious appeal to groups of people who are largely deprived of any power or influence in their working or political lives.
It is a great contrast to the early missionary churches which had come to bring a Western version of Christianity, or to the hierarchical established churches which in some countries were seen as too closely allied to government or to employers.
For the first 60 years of the 20th century, Pentecostalism was largely confined to specifically Pentecostal denominations, but in the s Pentecostal ideas became a source of renewal in other Protestant churches, and this extended to some Roman Catholic churches shortly afterwards. The emphasis given to experience of the divine distinguishes Pentecostals from other Evangelical Christians who would say that the Bible is the only foundation of their faith.
Some people feel that because Pentecostalism is based on a direct experience of God it is in some way purer and more like the faith of the early Christians. Pentecostal churches are not very influential in the Christian establishment , despite having very large numbers of very active members. In fact it's almost unthinkable that a person could be a passive Pentecostal. This may be because many of these churches have a minority racial profile, and their members are mostly poor and not in positions of secular power.
However given the energy and growth of the movement it's likely that their influence will grow significantly in future. In recent years, Pentecostals have engaged in creative and supportive discussions in the International Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue.
Some Pentecostal churches have moved away from the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that there is only one person in the Godhead - Jesus Christ. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not names of separate persons, but titles of positions held by God. The apostles understood that Jesus was the name to use at baptism, and from the day that the church of God was established the Day of Pentecost until the end of their ministry, they baptized all nations.
This idea developed from a sermon by R. McAlister who had founded the first Canadian Pentecostal church. McAlister showed that in the book of Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles baptism was always carried out only in the name of Jesus Christ and not using the Trinitarian formula given in Matthew Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Others joined McAllister, and after close study of the Bible they came to the conclusion that Christ contained the totality of the Godhead and that baptism in the name only of Jesus Christ was fully effective.
They noted that when Jesus used the Trinitarian formula in Matthew he used the singular word name rather than the plural names. In the four records of administering the rite of Christian baptism in the Book of Acts, we have the name Jesus mentioned in every one of them, but the words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are conspicuous by their absence.
Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
The Oneness movement is sometimes referred to as the "Jesus Only" churches, but this is a somewhat derogatory name and should be avoided. Search term:. Read more.
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